New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1887-06-08
LIEUT.. GREELY US SURPRISE.
HE'S ALWAYS sPRINGING QUEER WEATH.
Err OR INVENTIONS ON THE PUBLIC.

Err OR INVENTIONS ON THE PUBLIC.
A Suffering Citizen Tries to Get Square by
Exposing Dark Secret Of the Lieutenant,s
Texas Life-Filling Telegraph Insulators
: with Hornets and Turning on the Warm
Weather Faucet-Angry Linemen.
suppose that Brig. Gen. and Chief
Signal Officer Adolphus Weather-pro-
phet Greedy thought he was very funny
when he sent that Lapland blizzard
oyer here Monday to put us all in a
congestive chill. If so, I would like to
inform him privately that his reputa-
ton as = humorist in this town will get
a chronic case Of mango if he infests
us with another joke OF that kind. 1t
may be that the Generals meteorol ogy
got little widowed during the several
pleasant seasons he spent at the North
Pole, and that he thinks it Is the proper
caper to give the country q January
freeze-0ut in the midst of an April
thaW; or, perhaps, he contracted lik-
ing for Esquimaux climate, and prefers
his balmy and ethereal spring trimmed
with unexpected and superfuous bursts
of blue-nosed weather, but I can tell
him that when the average Citizen-at-
work is pining for early flies and as.
paragus, he doesn't enjoy stopping
around in wet feet or going with chat
terlng teeth to a premature grave.
Easter Sunday Gen. Greedy was all
right. He gave us clear, millinery
weather and plenty of it, and although
several dozen of our most beautiful
dudes were wilted by the heat, no one
ventured Il complaint. But after this
tropical touch, what did he mean by
sending out such a measly, Virgins
bill Of fare as this:
t'F'Or the middle atlantic States, Wiz-
cards, cyclones, frost, saaoW, rain, hail,
sleet, 20iM local areas of slush; rising,
+ falling or stationary barometer; avi1ad
a n. E., S. ", or caloa.' -
z Does he think that after giving us
i burn and freckles, and getting US out
r. j listers and in the way of juleps and
= er straw punishment, this is nice
: Sort of thing to practise on long suffer-
} g community? Are we going to have
any sudden brigadiers swelling around
Wind trifling with our hottest rights in
his wanton and piratical manner? Is
: shis his idea of fun, raising merry Cain
all over the country with his low-down
Manitoba episodes, when the humble
citizen wants to wear blue necktie
and 60 fishing? The weather last
week was pretty good for bullfrogs but
that's the best that can be said Of It,
/ hate to tell tales out of school, but
if Gen. Greedy doesn't tone down his
ideas of spring a little I will narrate an
incident of his brief career in Texas.
az , came down there in November,
1915, to build telegraph line to San
Antonio from Fort Brown. He had an
insulator which he and other experts
had gotten up in Washington especial
ly for this line. It consisted simply OF
well-lacquered sheet-lron cap over a
dry wood screw, and had the general
appearance of a tomoto can on the end
r.A, a broomstick when in position
NJ II, the line was built-4OO
miles of it-and for two weeks or a
month it worked like dream. Sud-
ienly warm weather came along, and
len warm weather strikes the lower
ILL., y Grande it takes hold for keeps.
'res re thermometer crawled up to 100, and
A0' several weeks of this spell the line
- ! Ia to get mysterious kinks in it,
3:Tbere was trouble somewhere, and
plenty of it. The line wasn't down,
but it seemed to have lost its grip on
through messages. San Antonio had to
DO its business with Fort Brown by re-
laying at Laredo. In a few days Lare-
) do could only telegraph as far as Ring
gold Barracks, south, or to Fort Clarke,
dorth, and through messages from San
antonio to Fort Brown had to stop off
Ahree times en- route and take q rest At
the end of a week the trouble was
worse yet. Lieut.. Greely-he was
plain lieutenant then-sent couriers
g2ropng up and down the whole cir
cut. They couldn't find place where
the wire was down or in contact with
trees or anything. But they reported
something queer with insulators.
Ljert. Greedy was wild with indignant
sur Sc. The idea OF an 'sinsulator''
going wrong which had been concoct-
ed i'll Washington especially for Texas!
Still the telepraDh line wasn't WORKING
an" better as u telegraph line than as
NV <h-lihe or 4 clothes-line, so he Dor
- we'd mule from the quartermaster
- started out to investigate. He
~, me back in light marching order
t evening with sad secret in his